July 2003

Dr. William Gray Johnson, Associate Research Professor with the Desert Research Institute and Secretary of the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation, will be participating in a roundtable discussion at the European Association of Archaeologists meeting to be held in St. Petersburg, Russia in September of this year. The roundtable is organized by John Schofield and Wayne Cocroft of English Heritage and is titled "Recording and assessing Cold War historic resources."

The Cold War is not a period usually associated with archaeological studies. Furthermore, despite the passage of time, and the monumental changes in society, the economy and post-Cold War politics, much of the physical legacy of the Cold War remains as a legible and significant record of past events. Many of these traces are tangible and can be recorded by conventional means (such as the test sites for nuclear weapons; the infrastructure for conducting the Cold War, and the defenses to protect against it). Other traces are intangible and require less conventional means to understand and quantify them (how the Cold War has affected communities, and the places where they live; to what extent were communities affected by barriers and boundaries, most dramatically revealed by the Iron Curtain, and does the legacy of those influences remain?).

Conference organizers invited colleagues from other state heritage agencies in Europe, and delegates with an interest in the recent past, to contribute to a roundtable which will:

• present brief case studies of work undertaken to date; projects in England, the United States and Germany will be included;
  

• discuss other work undertaken, and the potential for future projects;
  

• consider why Cold War historic resources have significance, and for whom;
  
  
• begin to develop the main themes that could constitute a Europe-wide research agenda for furthering our knowledge of Cold War historic resources, as well as the mechanisms for achieving that; and establish a network of colleagues and organizations with whom a Europe-wide recording and research program could be developed.

Dr. Johnson's contribution is titled "Cold War Historic Preservation: An Overview of USA Efforts." His abstract states:

"The Cold War has been termed 'a placeless war' that happened everywhere and nowhere. It is an enigma in modern military history as there are no battlefields, it is virtually impossible to detail the number of casualties and so much of it was covert that it is difficult to understand its landscape completely. Historical researchers in the U.S. are steadily illuminating these hidden places of the Cold War resulting in a patchwork of nationally (if not internationally) significant properties selected at local levels that are afforded the protection of the National Register of Historic Places. Mirroring the patchwork nature of preservation, interpretation of these resources is gaining momentum through two new museums dedicated to this period."